This reconstruction has been updated! Find it here.

Elizabeth Woodville, England’s “White Queen,” was Queen of England as the wife of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. She was the mother of former subject Elizabeth of York (you can definitely see some family resemblance in the nose and eyes) as well as the grandmother to King Henry VIII. Surprisingly, no contemporary image of her exists, and this well-known portrait is likely a multi-generational copy of a lost original. There are actually several versions of this portrait with slightly different features. The artistry on this one is a little crude which is why it is hard to imagine her likeness – particularly around the cartoonish nose that I had to adapt. Elizabeth was said to be the “most beautiful woman in the Island of Britain” with “heavy-lidded eyes like those of a dragon.” She almost definitely had a plucked or shaved hairline in this portrait to open her face as was the fashion at the time – I’ve also reigned that in a little bit for my modern version.